April 1, 2008
If the United Church of Christ were indeed to be a church of “open ideas, extravagant welcome and evangelical courage” it would be a phenomena worthy of great joy. Sadly this is not the reality. The leadership and consequently the growing ethos in the United Church of Christ presses for conformity to a rigid ideology that affirms pansexual behavior as normative and systemically rejects the faith of what has come to be known as ECOT members, those who hold evangelical, conservative, orthodox or traditional Christian convictions. In what is increasingly referred to as the new fundamentalism of the left in the UCC, members who do not ascribe to the denomination’s doctrine of “open and affirming” are, in many settings of the national church, seminaries, conferences, camps and pastoral placements institutionally prohibited from being hired, holding office or serving in ministry.
A growing emphasis on conformity to “progressive” ideology has alienated many minority members in the United Church of Christ and has over recent years reversed efforts to have the UCC become authentically multi-racial. In 2004, a group of African American UCC pastors objecting to having their association coerced to accept the pansexual agenda, issued a “memorandum” which concluded, “This arrogant abuse of power by the leadership of a predominantly white denomination raises grave racial implications for its black constituency. This abuse of power dismantles the basis of union between the black and white members of the United Church of Christ.” Since this memorandum received little if any positive response, a significant number of African American congregations have left the UCC. In 2005, in reaction to the UCC rejection of the Biblical view of marriage between one man and one woman, the entire Puerto Rico Conference left the UCC en masse. Rather than respond with humility, UCC President John Thomas communicated divisively to congregations in the Puerto Rico Conference that they could leave their conference to stay with the UCC.
Instead of the diversity being advertised, John Thomas has joined other denominational officials in concocting and embracing a conspiracy theory to demonize their critics with the claim that grassroots ECOT movements are manufactured by outside right wing extremists with sinister intent. In reality these renewal groups have been transparent about their origins, agenda, associations and grassroots member funding and seek to grow and sustain churches within the United Church of Christ. The UCC is in truth an aging, white, liberal, and increasingly exclusive denomination that has lost members and churches every year since 1963.
For the United Church of Christ which only came into
existence in 1957, to claim for its own the glorious witness of those Christian
before us who acted on the gospel of Jesus Christ for such social transformation
as the abolition of slavery, is hubris that offends history. Many of the
positions taken by the United Church of Christ would be profoundly offensive to
Christians who went before us. We can only dream of a UCC that lives what it is
advertising in the New York Times.